Impact of limited metal supply on fighters and clerics

[Sahegian]

I know darksun did this, but I can't remember how or if they made it work.

I suppose there could be something similar to the Ankheg(sp?) plate mail of Baldur's Gate, but I'd want it to be a fairly rare material as opposed to heading down to the Ankheg(sp?) farm. So it still leaves me with a problem.

So basically metal armor isn't going to be available to the players. The high AC seems to be a big part of the class especially in the early-mid levels and it would be hard to get back without damaging other stats for a dex bonus. What if anything should be given to fighters and clerics in the place of heavy armor proficiency?

[Penguinizer]

What about armor composed of non-metal substances, such as bone armor.

[ghost_warlock]

Pssst. Here's a link to a world that fully explores the ramifications of limited metal availability. (http://www.athas.org/)

Wikipedia article. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Sun)

Where to go to purchase OOP materials as .pdfs (http://paizo.com/store/downloads/wizardsOfTheCoast/aDAndD2/darkSun)

[Sahegian]

ghost_warlock do you have any advise as to where that info might be on that page? I'm not seeing anything to do with equipment at the moment.

Disregard that I found it. I guess that answers how Darksun made it work. I suppose this should cover my needs. Thanks for the link and suggestions guys.

[Hoggmaster]

In Athas, metal of anykind is very, very rare (did I say Rare). people get by with bone, ivory, obsidian, stone weapons...they are very breakable (in game I would autobreak on a 1-2 or 20 to hit...)

[ghost_warlock]

Dragon #319 and Dungeon #110 updated some of the Dark Sun (Athas) material to 3.5.

Dragon #319 talked in depth about weapons and armor made from bone (-2 to attack and damage, hardness 6, 10 hp/inch, weighs half as much as PHB metal version), blood obsidian (+1 on damage, hardness 12, 30 hp/inch - special Dark Sun material), bronze (-1 to attack and damage, hardness 9, 20 hp/inch), iron (same as PHB weapons), stone (-2 to attack and damage, hardness 8, 15 hp/inch), and wood (-3 to attack and damage except for cetain weapons, hardness 5, 10 hp/inch).

According to the mag, on Athas weapons made of bone, stone, and wood cost the same as the equivalant listed in the PHB while blood obsidian costs 2,000 gp more, bronze 5x as much, and iron 10x as much.

The magazine listed a whole slew of non-metallic armors, everything from bark to chitin.

In Dark Sun, the natives use ceramic pieces for currency. Each "coin" is notched so it can be broken into 10 "bits." A whole coin has the same purchasing power on Athas that a gp normally has in D&D.

The mag doesn't talk about it, but another rule I just came up with that you could use for weapon breakage is that, whenever an attack is made with a weapon that deals damage higher than the weapon's hardness, the weapon would have to make a Fort save or break (DC 15?).